Sketchbooks, 1895-1903; sketches, 1894-1896, made while Magonigle was travelling in Europe on Rotch Travelling Scholarship; graphic designs, 1902-1919; rendered competition drawings for government buildings, circa 1907-1920, and memorial structures, circa 1910-1930; photographs of Magonigle's architectural drawings, memorial structures, monuments, and other architectural work, much of it located in New York City, circa 1900s-1930s. Among projects represented in the collection are the Gates Avenue Courthouse, Brooklyn, N.Y.; the Firemen's Memorial, the Robert Fulller Memorial, and the National Watergate Memorial in New York City's Riverside Park; the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, Mo.; the Isaac Guggenheim house in Port Washington, N.Y.; numerous additions and alterations for the Franklin Murphy mansion in Mendham, N.J.; and the United States Embassy compound in Tokyo, Japan. Also, drawings by other architects including Hugh Ferriss, Thomas Rogers Kimball, Hubert George Ripley, and I.W. Taber, that were presented to Magonigle. Also included are drawings, circa 1910s-1940s, by Magonigle's wife, painter and designer Edith Marion Day; photographs of Day and Magonigle; manuscripts of lectures, literary works, and other writings by Magonigle; and ephemera.

Harold Van Buren Magonigle was a New York-based architect, graphic designer, painter and sculptor. Magonigle married artist Edith Marion Day in 1900. Edith Magonigle was a painter and muralist who served as President of the Society of Women Painters and Sculptors. Edith was a primary collaborator of Harold Van Buren Magonigle in both the decoration and creation of buildings designed by his practice. He was widely known as an architect of memorial structures including the Firemen's Memorial on Riverside Drive and the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City. Other prominent commissions include the Isaac Guggenheim house in Port Washington, New York and the United States Embassy in Tokyo, Japan.

Included are drawings made by Avery while studying under Jules Andre at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, and sketchbooks containing sketches made in Paris and on excursions, 1872-1879. Architectural drawings and photographs of architectural drawings for proposed or executed residential and commercial buildings, churches, art galleries, monuments, and other structures, 1880s; competition drawings for public monuments, 1883-1887; experimental studies, 1885, for the pedestal of Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi's Statue of Liberty; and 39 studies and finished drawings, 1888-1890, made for a competition for a memorial for Ulysses S. Grant which he did not win. Also, magazine articles by or about Avery and his work, 1883-1890; obituaries and death announcements, 1890; miscellaneous photographs, certificates, and papers; and invitations, clippings, illustrations, and photographs, circa 1892-1894, relating to the founding of the Avery Architectural Library at Columbia University.

Architectural drawings and photographs of buildings designed by the firm dating approximately from its founding to the 1950s. Among those represented are buildings at the World's Columbian Exhibition, Chicago, 1893; Pennsylvania Railroad Station, New York, 1906-1910; restoration, 1903, of the White House, Washington, D.C.; buildings at Columbia University's Morningside Heights campus, New York; Boston Public Library, Boston, Mass.; E.W. Morgan mansion; Municipal Building, N.Y.; Col. Elliott Shepherd House, Scarborough, N.Y.; buildings at Amherst College, Amherst, Mass.; Bellevue Hospital, New York; various New York City residences; and others. Also included are competition drawings for the New York Public Library; miscellaneous drawings and sketches; photographs of the partners and of other members of the firm; lists of the firm's work; clippings of articles about the firm; lists of the firm's employees; billing records, 1953-1955; account books, 1940s-1950s; bank books, 1895-1955; award certificates; and other office miscellany.

Included in this collection are nineteen albumen photographs and one lithographic print of architectural drawings submitted by architects for the competition to design the New York State Capitol building in Albany, circa 1866-1870. Competing architects and architectural firms represented here include Adams & Worthen, Louis Burger, Fuller & Gilman, Fuller & Laver, Schulze & Schoen, and several unidentified architects. Of note are drawings for the New York State Capitol by Louis Burger and Schulze & Schoen bearing inscriptions to Obadiah B. Latham, a member of the Capitol Commission. Also included are nine photographs showing construction in progress on the Capitol between July and September, 1869. Photographs of competition drawings by Schulze & Schoen for the Iowa Capitol, the New York Post Office, and the New York Life Insurance Company Building, as well as an unsigned drawing of the Ohio Capitol building are additionally part of this collection. Several of the images are labeled by the photographer E.S.M. Haines, also practicing as Haines & Wickes, in Albany, New York.